The present invention relates to a cockroach trap, and more particularly to a cockroach trap having one-way trapdoors that can be pushed inward but not outward and a selector switch for controlling the trap to discharge periodically at preset time intervals or manually at selected times to kill any trapped cockroach with electric currents.
The cockroach is one of many insects that have been living on the earth for a very long time. The cockroach has life, reproductivity, and environmental adaptability that are too strong to be imagined by human. The cockroach has ugly appearance that makes people sick, and disgusting nature that makes people impossible to accept it. The cockroach appears in our living environments at any place and at any time to contaminate food and articles and to subject people to threats of bacteria and viruses. The cockroach is just a nightmare for most people.
There are various chemical insecticides developed and commercially available for fighting against cockroaches. However, the existing insecticides tend to pollute food and articles and endanger human when they are sprayed to kill the cockroaches. What is worse is the cockroaches develop good resistance to the insecticides when the latter are applied over a long time. Therefore, chemical insecticides are gradually abandoned and replaced with the so-called cockroach-capturing devices. A very common cockroach-capturing device includes a sticking paper to which a cockroach is stuck and captured. However, the sticking paper tends to lose its sticking ability and even become useless after being exposed to the air for a prolonged time. Thus, the conventional cockroach-capturing devices have short service life to increase a user""s burden.
The increasingly developed electronic technologies create a wide range of living-related products, including many largely improved electronic cockroach traps. Most conventional electronic cockroach traps are configured to have only one entrance and to discharge either in an automatic and periodical manner or at any time a cockroach is trapped and detected. The only one entrance of the trap admits only limited number of cockroaches into the trap. And, a high-tension electric net inside the trap is either actuated to produce electric shocks when cockroaches creeping into the trap are detected by infrared, light sensor or other similar means or to automatically periodically discharges at preset time intervals. In either form, the conventional cockroach traps consume considerably high power. Moreover, hiss produced during electric shocks would also scare away other cockroaches outside the traps to further reduce the effect of the conventional cockroach traps.
The cockroach usually appears and moves around in dark corners, particularly in the nighttime. The conventional electronic cockroach traps are usually connected to a receptacle via a power cord to obtain an AC current of commercial power. Being limited by the power cord that usually has a fixed length, it is not always possible to position the conventional electronic cockroach traps at any dark corners as desired.
Another disadvantage of the conventional electronic cockroach trap is it is not provided with any interrupt system to protect a user""s safety. Accidents resulted in electrically shocked users often occur.
It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop an improved cockroach trap to eliminate drawbacks existing in the conventional electronic cockroach trapping devices.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a cockroach trap having a plurality of one-way trapdoors that can be pushed inward but not outward and a selector switch for controlling the trap to discharge automatically and periodically at preset intervals or manually at selected times to kill any trapped cockroach at reduced power consumption.
To achieve the above and other objects, the cockroach trap of the present invention includes an open-topped base and a cover pivotally connected to the base. The base is provided on sidewalls with a plurality of entrances closed with inward openable one-way trapdoors, and on a bottom with a bait compartment and two multipolar metal conductors that provide alternately arranged positive and negative poles.
The cover is provided on a top with an AC/DC control circuit, an output of which is connected to the two metal conductors. A periodic/manual discharge selector switch is provided on the control circuit for selecting a discharge manner of the two metal conductors to kill any cockroach trapped in the base at minimized power consumption.